I became a Duolingo Free user in 2015. Actually back then there wasn’t even a paid option, it was truly free. Back then I started learning German, and even if I didn’t advance too much, I could say that it helped me learn some basics. Don’t ask me why though, but after a few months I stopped playing with it and never picked it up again until 2023. Boy, did it change a lot in the past 7 years. I wish I’d say it was a good change, but unfortunately I consider Duolingo Free sucks (the 2023 version that is) in comparison with the app I toyed around with in 2016.

So why does Duolingo Free suck now? Well, here’s a few reasons I compiled after playing it again for almost 2 months:

Only 5 hearts. As a free version user, you get only 5 hearts. Everytime you make a mistake during a lesson, you lose a heart. You make 5 mistakes, you cannot exercise anymore for that day, unless you pay with the in-app currency or you practice:

  • The problem isn’t that they make you exercise to win back the hearts, the problem is that you’re fragmenting your lesson. Think about this, you start the lesson, and before you end answering all 20 questions to finish that lesson, you lose all hearts. You have to quit the lesson, practice to win hearts, and then to start over.
  • Obviously, everytime you practice to earn hearts, you are obligated to watch ads, so even more wasted time.
  • The other option is buying more hearts with the gems you earn throughout the game. And they’re expensive, hundreds of gems to refill all hearts, given how after reaching a daily goal you get between 5 and 30 gems.
  • It’s very easy to make mistakes. For instance, I’m studying German. You type an entire translated sentence in German, but you don’t type correctly the article (i.e. you type “keine” instead of “keinen”). That’s a mistake and a deducted heart.
  • It takes forever for hearts to refill naturally. One every 5 hours, so a full day (and a bit over) for all 5 hearts to refill.
  • Obviously, what adds to the frustration is the fact that each time you run out, they mention that you can pay for the Super plan and you’ll get unlimited hearts. This wasn’t the case in the old version of the app, you could’ve had as many errors as possible.
  • There’s a bug on the web version. Which I’m not sure it’s intentional or not, but you cannot practice to earn hearts on the web version of Duolingo. I tried it and just redirects me to the homepage. I’ve submitted a bug report with no answer, a few weeks later it worked for a few lessons and then it stopped again.

Ads at the end of every lesson. Non-Super members get to experience ads in Duoling. Lots of ads. Ads in freemium versions of apps/games don’t usually bother me, it’s understandable that they need to make money somehow. But there’s a few things that bother me with the way Duolingo free includes those ads:

  • At the end of every lesson, you’ll see an ad. Each lesson takes around 2-3 minutes, so you’re about to watch a whole lot of ads.
  • Sometimes ads are skippable, but they have all these tricks to keep you watching the ad longer. One ad has a skip icon on the right, next on the left, some have skippable icons with delayed action and others are plain un-skippable.
  • Obviously the sound of the ads is louder (much louder) than the one of the app itself so it’s bothering.
  • From time to time you get 2x experience boosts that last around 15 minutes. During that time, you get double the experience from practicing (experience is used for leaderboards). However, ads are not deducted from those 15 minutes. Meaning if you watch ads at the end of every lesson, you lose some of your 2x XP boost.

Unclear learning structure. The old Duolingo version had a clearer structure of learning. You had a few lessons with Basics, then Food, then Clothing and so on. You could look back and practice on a section that you knew exactly what it teaches. However, the new structure is just Units with several steps. You never know what the Unit is about, so clueless on what you can go back to repeat.

 

 

 

Old learning structure

New learning structure

Paid challenges. In Duolingo, you also gain experience with every lesson you finish. Experience allows you to access leaderboards. If you’re within the first 3 ranked players in the league you’re playing in, you get gems – 100 for the third place and more going up. Another way to gain experience points is to play the Challenges they organize every week. These challenges are also quite fun, however, they’re not free unless you’re a Super player. You have to pay gems for each challenge level.

Fun but not truly helpful. Duolingo focuses on gamification, trying to convince you to practice daily with the ultimate goal to learn a language. However, I think of Duolingo more like a fun tool when learning a language, rather than a way to learn a new language by itself. Here’s why I think that:

  • Firstly, it’s actually teaching us languages in a superficial way, focusing on phrases and words that aren’t that common in everyday communications. I wish they’d focus more on practical conversational sentences/phrases, rather than “The bear likes to cook” (true example).
  • Secondly, it’s limited in teaching grammar and vocabulary. You don’t have a way to read more about rules in that particular language, you just have to memorize it and figure it out of the context. You do have translation tips when tapping on words, but no advanced explanations. Duolingo fails to offer a comprehensive explanation of grammar. Basically you just read new words and what they mean.
  • Overemphasis on memorization. Duolingo is more of a memorization tool. That’s right, you are presented with a lot of new words, and basically practice remembering them and some sentences that occasionally repeat. It’s more focused on the gamification rather than helping you truly learn a language.
  • No real user conversations. It would be excellent if you could talk with other users in their own language, this way practice for real the language you’re learning. Instead, you can add friends and nudge/send them gifts or start challenges with them, but you can’t discuss with them. That’s a pity.

No Offline Access. It would be nice to allow you to practice offline too. After all, keeping some dictionaries offline wouldn’t occupy that much space. The reason I believe Duolingo doesn’t work at all offline, is because when you’re online you can watch ads, but offline no.

Gamification Pressure. Time constraints, easiness to lose hearts and annoying “streak” pressure actually is a bit counterproductive when learning a language. I admit they’ve toned it down a little, but before they sent quite aggressive push-notifications.

No rewards for referrals. You have a way to invite others to use Duolingo. Sometimes this is helpful as playing a language-learning game with friends could help you stay on track. But it bothers me that you don’t get any rewards for inviting friends. I believe when Super was launched at first, you’d get 3 days of Super everytime you invited a friend. But now nothing, so not sure how they think that’ll encourage others to invite friends. Plus, they almost never release Duolingo Promo Codes that offer something (i.e. 3 days of Super).

Most other language learning apps like Rosetta Stone, Busuu, Babbel have a more academic like structure, where an idea is shown to you in that language, and then the challenges are focused on that particular thing that’s being taught. Even if it does seem very easy, it actually helps you figure out when you make a mistake and correct it. With DuoLingo however, when you make a mistake, you get no explanations on why that’s wrong. You just have to memorize the correct version and go on to learning a new thing.

In conclusion? Duolingo free can be fun a times, however if you’re serious about learning a new language, you have to try other language apps. I also recommend chatting with a native as real-life communications are truly gold in terms of learning.